BioMed Central, is today launching a new open access journal Movement Ecology, marking a significant milestone in this field of research as the first journal of its kind. The journal is associated with the new movement ecology institute The Minerva Center for Movement Ecology.
Movement phenomena are among the most basic characteristics of life, playing a key role in determining evolutionary and ecological processes including major global environmental concerns. Movement Ecology welcomes manuscripts on any taxa and any movement phenomena (e.g. foraging, dispersal or seasonal migration) addressing important research questions on the patterns, mechanisms, causes and consequences of organismal movement.
Co-Editors-in-Chief Ran Nathan, a pioneer of the movement ecology paradigm, and ecological mathematician Luca Giuggioli aim to include novel insights from empirical and theoretical approaches into the ecology of movement of the whole organism (animals, plants or microorganisms) as the central theme.
Ran Nathan says, “The journal marks a milestone in the scientific enterprise of movement ecology, a rapidly emerging field aimed at unveiling some of the greatest secrets of nature, for instance what drives big migrations, why animals and plants disperse away from home, how do they forage for food, and how could some navigate so proficiently to the other side of the planet.”
Luca Giuggioli continues, “It is becoming increasingly evident that understanding natural science phenomena requires a transdisciplinary approach. This new open access journal is a great opportunity to push the movement ecology research agenda further by providing a transdisciplinary forum that gives centre stage to the movement of organisms of all kinds.”
Included in the launch issue is an editorial by the Editors-in-Chief introducing the central themes of Movement Ecology, followed by three high quality articles providing just a glimpse of the diversity of this journal.
Lyons et al. developed and tested a new tool for analyzing movement data, illustrating this on springbok in Namibia.
Dodge et al. present a new system for matching movement tracks with environmental variables.
Finally, Safi et al. show that GPS tag data can provide better predictions of direction and speed than inferring details from the next location, testing this on nine species of bird.
Nandita Quaderi, BioMed Central’s Publisher (Biological Science) said, “The launch of Movement Ecology will provide a much-needed forum for discussion for this important ecological paradigm. BioMed Central is pleased to launch this new journal in a rapidly evolving field. Movement Ecology is an exciting new addition to our growing portfolio of ecology journals, and through the open access model, will allow global dissemination of the latest research to those working on a wide range of taxa and movement phenomena, furthering our understanding of the ecological process of movement.”
